Jamaican Till I Die!

As we all know this Government went to the IMF and borrowed US$800 Million, then they went to the Bond market and borrowed an additional US$800 Million, this coupled with the US$850 plus million the last Government borrowed. This PNP Government then decided to add some US$200 Million to prop up the NIR, which I willing to accept since it supposedly represents putting aside money for a rainy day, yeah right (lol). Jamaica’s national debt now stands at just over $2 Trillion Jamaican dollars. But I am NOT willing to accept the fact that the Government and BOJ decided to pump money into the foreign exchange market so that Jamaicans can use it to buy Brazilian weave and Butch Stewart's son can import expensive luxury automobiles, along with the loads of rubbish we import that undermines local production.  Instead of using the borrowed money to stimulate the exporting sectors, stimulate the agricultural and manufacturing sector the Government decided to prop up the exchange rate,...

The Caribbean Community regional organization represented by more than a dozen nations has established a Reparations Commission and hired a British human rights lawyer to press the issue of compensation from Britain, France and the Netherlands for what is described as "the lingering impact of the Atlantic slave trade,"………. Caribbean nations prepare demand for slavery reparations The Big Bang of Slavery: What did invasion, conquering, subjugating, genocidal murder, slavery and colonization mean for European and their descendants? For Europeans and their descendants , Slavery was to wealth, what the Big Bang was to the Universe. I look at slavery as a Big Bang of wealth creation. An instant explosion of Wealth that ripples through space and time, creating compounded wealth that transcends generations. The benefits of which is still being felt to this very day by Europeans and their descendants. What did invasion, conquering, subjugating, genocidal murder, sl...

In January of 2010 the IMF announced that its was in agreement with the Government of Jamaica for a bailout loan of US$1.2 Billion under a 27-month Stand-By Arrangement. By 2011 Jamaica’s IMF agreement derailed as Jamaica did not sit the review test for quarters ending December, June and September and the IMF has said it would not go to its board until Jamaica is able to get the programme back on track, as such Jamaica was unable to drawn down any more money from the fund. Under the 27-month agreement with the IMF, Jamaica had agreed to reduce the public-sector wage bill from 11.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 9.5 per cent of GDP. Prime Minister Bruce Golding told Parliament that the requirement could lead to approximately 10,000 job cuts, which I think was a conservative estimate as some experts predicted close to 30,000. The IMF declared that Jamaica has not been moving fast enough to affect necessary reforms under the 27-month standby arrangement and so they...

I am reading an interesting piece on the relationship between Debt and GDP, this continued from my reading last week on Debt and the Exchange Rate… I am trying to figure out at what point I should start to feel good about increasing GDP and lowering exchange rate. Since increase borrowing can increase GDP but only marginally so that the trade off is not worth the borrowed money and increase borrowing can lower our exchange rate since we artificially flood the market with currency we did not earn. Our Governments have trained us to react to certain stimuli without giving us the real story behind those stimuli. Marginally increasing GDP and lowering exchange rate through excessive borrowing, doubling our debt is nothing but window dressing, eye candy and false positives as it is not sustainable or real, unless we earn way more than we borrow and debt repayment is a low percentage of every dollar earned, currently our debt is over 140% of GDP and 80 cents out of every dollar goe...